Researchers Return to Real World After Four Months on 'Mars'

iStock/Thinkstock (HONOLULU) -- Six researchers who have been living in a mock-up Mars habitat on a Hawaiian volcano returned to the real world Friday, feeling a breeze and hearing birds for the first time in four months. The second Hawaii Space Exploration Analog & Simulation mission, known as HI-SEAS, ended 120 days of the Red Planet exploration on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano.

Expedition leader Casey Stedman and his five crew members had been living inside their 1,000-square-foot solar-powered dome, which includes common areas such as kitchen, dining room, bathroom with shower, lab and exercise space.

“I haven’t seen a tree, smelled the train, heard a bird, or felt wind on my skin in four months,” Stedman posted on his Instagram account.

The crew have been cooking with dehydrated food that doesn’t require refrigerated food and venturing out of the dome only for simulated spacewalks in mock spacesuits.